ICP------------------------------------That's what comes to mind about Michigan

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"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly sent tremors through the presidential campaign in battleground Minnesota Sunday by endorsing Republican President George Bush, delighting state GOP officials and irritating his fellow DFLers.

Kelly is believed to be the only major office-holder in Minnesota in either party to cross over in the presidential race. But rumors of his possible switch to the Republican Party did not materialize.

In a relatively low-key announcement in the back yard of his East Side home, Kelly said he will remain a Democrat and will continue to differ with Republicans on key issues such as the mushrooming budget deficit.

He also urged Bush not to use the gay marriage issue to "divide America."

The war in Iraq and the economic recovery now underway will go better "if we don't try to bring in a whole new leadership team," Kelly said.

"The common good will be better served on the path we're on than with an abrupt change of direction, especially one paved in part with political hatred," Kelly said, adding that his decision was influenced recently when he saw a bumper sticker that said "I Hate Bush."

Kelly said he spoke to Bush personally by telephone on Friday and was invited to join him at a campaign stop in Mankato on Wednesday. He didn't say if he would be there. Kelly said the call was not a factor in his decision, and that his decision had been made earlier.

A DFLer who spent 30 years in the Legislature battling Republicans on many fronts, Kelly offered no direct criticism of Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee. The closest he came was criticizing a "partisanship that threatens to destroy the national will to come together to win the war on terror here at home, and across the world."

The reaction from DFLers ranged from annoyance to censure to dismissal of the importance of the crossover.

DFL Chairman Mike Erlandson said Kelly's endorsement "will have no impact on the Nov. 2 election" and won't matter much outside of St. Paul.

Several of about a dozen St. Paul DFLers who gathered across the street from Kelly's house said they suspect that Kelly's real motive was to lay the ground for a possible later conversion to the Republican Party and a run for statewide office, on the theory that he will be owed a big favor and will be helped by Bush if he wins reelection.

"I can't imagine how someone could consider himself a Democrat and back such a fringe right-wing candidate," said Council member Dave Thune, a frequent antagonist of Kelly's.

"This shows that Mayor Kelly is totally out of touch and possibly looking out for his own skin," he added.

Kelly denied any such ambitions for statewide office, saying that if he seeks reelection in the fall of 2005, it will be as a DFLer. "This is not in any way calculated to advance an interest in higher office," he said.

The chairman of the city's DFL organization, Jim Mogen, said Kelly "has traded the values of the voters of St. Paul for the agenda of the Republican Party's far right." Kelly "decided to deal away the progressive principles that he held in the Minnesota Legislature for table scraps from [Republican] Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Taxpayers League."

Others said that Kelly might have hurt his chances for reelection because the solid DFL majority in St. Paul is unified in opposition to the Republican incumbent as never before. "I don't see how it can help for his reelection," Erlandson said.

Weighing in from the Kerry-Edwards Minnesota campaign was communications director Stacie Paxton, who said the move "isn't surprising, given Randy Kelly's longstanding flirtation with the Republican Party and will have little, if any, impact on the campaign."

Jim Kielkopf, chair of the East Side DFL Party, said "it baffles me that the mayor, a lifelong Democrat with a liberal record on social spending, labor rights, and even gun control would choose this time to support George Bush."

Overt signs of exultation or gloating were missing from the announcement, which was followed by a question-and-answer session with reporters at a patio table. No Bush campaign signs and no high-ranking Republican elected officials were present, although a couple of Minnesota Bush campaign staff members attended.

In a statement released by the Bush-Cheney Minnesota operation, Pawlenty, co-chair of the campaign, praised Kelly for putting "principle before partisan politics."

However, Kelly apparently won't be reticent about his support for long. Today he will join Pawlenty, House Speaker Steve Sviggum, and former state Sen. Bob Lessard, a former DFLer from International Falls who converted to the Independence Party in his final years in the Senate, in a fly-around "Unity Tour" to Duluth and Rochester.

DFL leaders emphasized repeatedly that the loss of Kelly on the presidential race was no surprise.

Particularly in the last week during the Democratic National Convention, Kelly had been sending signals that he might not endorse Kerry. DFLers feared all along that Kelly would somehow replicate his stance in 2002, when he stayed neutral in the race for the U.S. Senate between the late DFL Sen. Paul Wellstone and former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, who in 1996 converted from Democrat to Republican. Coleman had endorsed Kelly for mayor, helped him win, won that Senate race with President Bush's direct and aggressive help, and is now co-chair of the Bush campaign.

Like Coleman, Kelly has a reputation as moderate-to-liberal on many economic issues but is considered a conservative on social issues such as abortion. And like Coleman, he has often been at odds with the liberal activist base of the DFL Party. Neither received party endorsement in their runs for mayor.

Coleman said in a statement that Kelly "again proved what I have long known: He is a fine man whose first priority is not partisanship but the well-being of St. Paul and the entire nation. Mayor Kelly realizes that jobs are being created and that tax cuts have stimulated that job growth. I applaud him for following his conscience and his concrete convictions."

Polls for months have shown Minnesota to be about as evenly divided as possible and the state is on the short list, along with Iowa and Wisconsin, of crucial battleground states.

If the outcome is decided by a few hundred votes and Bush wins in Minnesota and nationwide, Kelly's support might be considered pivotal and his standing with a reelected administration presumably would be greatly enhanced.

Kelly brushed aside all the speculation about short-term and long-term political consequences, although he implied at one point that his move could be costly to his career. And he insisted that it was mostly a personal decision, driven by his responsibility as "a mayor, as an American, as a husband and a father."

"Whatever the cost of this decision is to me, the expense of remaining quiet in this election year is of far greater consequence to me," he said. "I have done what I can, along with the love and care of my wife, to raise two sons these past two decades. I love them with more of my being than I care to share with you today. And it is with that love that I make this difficult decision and choice."

I have a disgusting confession to make. I am a closet racist. I'm so ashamed of myself, because when I'm driving and someone cuts me off (or whatever) the first thing I notice is the "race" that did it. Or I'll see some black guy walking around my predominantly white neighbourhood, with a big silver chain, and I'll think "bling, bling". Now here is the deal: I have no actual dislike toward any race! Seriously, I treat everybody the same, but I feel as though I've been taught to see people this way. I notice these racist thoughts as soon as they happen and I'm immediately disgusted with myself. Not in a guilty way, but in a way that's like, "Jesus Nikki, that isn't your brain thinking, grow up!".

Absolutely. And there's no shame in that, especially if you recognize what the thought or feeling is and where it's coming from.

A few things come to mind... There's that beautiful scene in Bowling for Columbine (perhaps the best in the movie) where the cop in LA turns from the camera and starts suspiciously walking toward an African American family playing in their yard. And then there's the joking comment the recruiters make in F911 when a couple black kids cross the street. Suspicion is on everybody's mind when they see "black people." It's a trained thing. Somebody says "Germany," and what do you think? Hitler? Nazi? You see a black person, and what do you think? Crime? Violence? Poverty? Bling bling? It's social conditiong, and being suspicious of it, noticing it, and actively rejecting it is even harder to learn.

The worst part is that you start training yourself. A black person cuts you off. You look at him, and maybe unconsciously think oh, he's black. When a white person cuts you off, do you think oh, he's white? Of course not. We aren't trained to be suspicious of white people, of course, because white people are in power.

When I walk past an African American person, it's totally different from walking past a white person. I can't ignore the context. And I can't help having some anxiety (if it's some one I don't know), like "what if I do something racist?" Larry David has a brilliant insight into this, by the way.

One time I was driving in busy traffic and I took a left turn at an intersection... but I stopped kind of abruptly because there was some one in the crosswalk who wasn't immediately visible, an African American woman walking with two small children. I'm stopped in the middle of the intersection, and she finishes walking through the intersection very very slowly, glaring intensely into my eyes the whole time, absolutely sure she was the victim of racism. I completely froze and had no idea what to do. It was really an emotionally shocking experience.

But the best way to fight stereotypes is to actually know people. I've had several minority professors in college, people I genuinely admire. And that's really why it's so important to have minority teachers and authority figures... it shatters stereotypes and balances power.

I don't know why, but I never saw JB using Pink Triangle to answer a question.

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"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye